Over the past several years an international network of networks known as the Internet has become increasingly popular. The Internet allows millions of users throughout the world to communicate with each other. To provide users with easier access to information available on the Internet, a World Wide Web has been established. The World Wide Web allows information to be organized, searched and presented on the Internet using hypertext. Thus, using the World Wide Web a user can submit a query for information and be linked electronically to information of interest which has been stored at web locations on the Internet. Using hypertext, a user can also communicate information to other users of the Internet. Hence, the Web has made it relatively easy for virtually anyone having access to a personal computer or other device connected to the Internet to communicate with others who are also connected to the network.
With the proliferation of Internet users, numerous services are now provided over the Internet. One of the first such services to be offered was electronic banking. Electronic banking allows banking customers to access their account information and execute banking transactions, e.g. the transfer of funds from a savings to checking account, by simply linking to a bank server using the Internet to access account information and communicate transfer instructions.
More recently, it has become possible to electronically pay bills by communicating instructions, via the Internet, to a financial institute maintaining deposited or credited funds of a pre-registered payer, or to a representative of the financial institute. The payments are then made to the payee by the financial institute or its representative. Funds from the payer's deposit or credit account, i.e. the payer's account, are debited by the financial institute to cover the payment. The payment by the financial institute or its representative to the payee can be made in any number of ways.
For example, the financial institute or representative may electronically transfer funds from the payer's account to the payee's account, may electronically transfer funds from a financial institute/representative's deposit or credit account, to the payee's account, may prepare a paper draft on the financial institute/representative account and mail it to the payee, may prepare an electronically printed paper check on the payer's account and mail it to the payee, or may make a wire transfer from either the financial institute/representative account or payer's account.
If the funds transferred to the payee are drawn from the financial institute/representative account, funds from the payer's account are electronically or otherwise transferred by the financial institute to the financial institute/representative account to cover the payment. Further, if the payment will be made from funds in the financial institute/representative account, the payment will preferably be consolidated with payments being made to the same payee on behalf of other payers.
Accordingly, such electronic bill payment systems eliminate the need for a payer to write or print paper checks and then forward them by mail to the payee. This makes it easier and more efficient for the payer to make payments. Payees receiving consolidated payments no longer have to deal with checks from each payee and therefore can process payments more efficiently. The making of payments by the electronic or wire transfer of funds provides even further efficiencies in payment processing by payees, and it is well recognized that making payments electronically can significantly reduce the cost of processing payments for both the payer and payee.
The number of users of electronic bill payment services has grown dramatically since introduction by CheckFree Corporation, the assignee of the present application. However, because the billing side of the billing/payment process had not been integrated with the electronic payment process, many potential users remained reluctant to utilize the service.
More particularly, until the offering by CheckFree Corporation, electronic bill payment systems were operated independent of the bill presentment process. Still today, most conventional electronic bill payment systems generally require that the payee receive a conventional paper bill from a merchant or other billing entity, the exception being for certain bill payments, such as mortgage payments, which can be pre-authorized by the payee. Thus, for most bill payments, it is only after the paper bill has been received that the payee can connect to the electronic bill payment system via the Internet and provide a payment instruction.
Using CheckFree's fully integrated electronic bill presentment and payment system, registered merchants and other payers can electronically present bills to registered consumers and other payees by communicating bills via the Internet, to the electronic presentment/payment service provider, which could be a financial institute/representative or some other service provider. Typically, the bill is stored centrally on the electronic presentment/payment system server. The service provider notifies the payer, for example by Internet email, of the availability of the bill and the bill can then be accessed by the payer by connecting to the system server or some other server, via the Internet, to retrieve the bill. Once connected to the system server, the payer can also communicate a payment instruction to the server and the payment can then be made to the payee as previously described.
Accordingly, CheckFree's electronic bill presentment and payment system eliminates the need for a payee to print paper bills and then forward them by mail to the payer. This makes it easier and more efficient for the payee to issue bills. Payers receiving electronic bills no longer have to deal with paper bills from each payer. The combination of electronic presentment and payment of bills has provided even further efficiencies and cost reductions in billing and payment processing by both payers and payees.
Although electronic bill presentment and particularly integrated electronic bill presentment and payment have received broad user acceptance from both payers and payees, there remains a significant number of payers using electronic bill presentiment and payment services who are not taking full advantage of the benefits of the electronic bill presentment facet of the services. These payers may not electronically receive all of their bills which are available in the electronic presentment form. Instead, these payers continue to receive some bills in paper form and make payments in either electronic or paper form. Oftentimes this is because the electronic payers are unaware that a particular payee offers electronic presentment.
One reason a payer may be unaware of the availability of electronic bills from a particular payee is that the community of payees who offer electronic bill presentment is ever-growing. These new-to-electronic-bill-presentment payees often have not informed their customers in a timely manner that electronic bill presentment is available. There is also a segment of the users of integrated electronic bill payment and presentment services who are unaware that any of their payees offer electronic bill presentment. Accordingly, a need exists for a technique to inform bill presentment and payment service users that electronic bill presentment is available, whether these customers are already taking advantage of electronic bill presentment to some extent, or whether they simply use the payment side of the service, to increase usage of electronic bill presentment.
As described above, electronic bill presentment offers significant benefits to payees. However, to gain these benefits, a payee who offers electronic bill presentment must be able to identify those payers who might wish to utilize electronic bill presentment. Currently, the only way for payees to identify a payer for electronic bill presentment is to receive a request for electronic bill presentment from that payer. The payee might also identify a payer for electronic bill presentment based on knowledge that a payer currently makes payments electronically to that payee. By being able to identify consumers who utilize electronic bill presentment and payment services for purposes unrelated to receiving or paying a payee's bill, a payee could efficiently focus its efforts to recruit new payers into the payee's electronic bill presentment and payment community of users. Accordingly, a need exists for a technique which will allow electronic billers to identify payers who may be amenable to electronic bill presentment and/or payment, to increase usage of electronic bill presentment and/or payment.